NDSU Engineering Students Showcase Senior Projects

Seniors in the school of engineering displayed their design projects which they worked on all year

FARGO, N.D. — Students at NDSU are showing how talented they are when it comes to computer engineering.

What do a guitar, a heart and wine all have in common?

They’re all topics NDSU engineering students have been studying to develop devices to help them function properly.

“Here we have a digitally enhanced vacuum tube guitar amplifier,” said student Zach Burkart.

“The goal of our project was to create an invented system that tracks the wine fermentation process,” said student Morgan Schlichtmann.

“We are simulating the heart and circulatory system to improve blood flow or diffusion in the heart,” said student Nolan Schwarz.

Sixteen electrical and computer engineering design teams revealed their senior design projects as part of their annual demonstration day.

Their assignments were given to them at the beginning of the year and they say the entire course of action was nothing short of challenging.

“It’s a lengthy process so being able to get auditory alerts and alerts on the screen to let you know when to move on to the next stage was the intent of it,” said Schlichtmann.

“It was just a lot of time making sure that everything was put together correctly,” said Burkart.

Burkart and his team were able to successfully output guitar signal and a mic signal, something that took a lot of trial and a lot of error.

“It was a long process of just putting pieces together, designing the Symantec, building it on something like that and then just testing it and hoping it works,” said Burkart.

Although it was a long two semesters, all student engineers explained what their favorite part of the process was.

“I like how easily it translated that you wouldn’t think an electric circuit could represent what the body does at all,” said Schwarz.

“Getting to develop the software and decide how we wanted to have it laid out and just getting it all perfected,” said Schlichtmann.

“Finishing it. The first time we heard sound coming out of the speaker, the first time we heard the guitar we were pretty excited about how good it sounded,” said Burkart.

They also shared their tips for the next batch of incoming students.

“I would say give it a try. It’s definitely very fun you can do a lot of really cool things with it,” said Schlichtmann.

“Teamwork makes the dream work,” said Burkart.

NDSU’s school of computer and electrical engineering also offers graduate programs for students to continue to their education.